PC Science

Posted on June 1, 2009 by Heather Mac Donald

I’m all for making science alluring to a wider audience, which it rightfully should be, given the natural Eros of knowledge.  But this opening night line-up for the World Science Festival in New York could send even the most committed enthusiast for the experimental method scurrying for the refuge of a humble sermon on Genesis.  Anna Deavere Smith and Alan Alda are hardly ideal ambassadors for showing that science is not the liberal elites’ way of waging war against mainstream America.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

4 Responses to PC Science

  1. Rich Orman says:
    June 1, 2009 at 5:03 pm

    While Harrison Ford and Glen Close are baffling, at least Alan Alda has a strong connection to science. For 12 years he was the host of Scientific American Frontiers on PBS, which was a straight science show without anything that I would call a liberal political bias. I think that someone who has devoted 12 years of his life to science education is a great choice to open a science conference–just because his politics are leftist doesn’t mean that everything he says and does is imbued with that quality. In fact, I thought that part of the point behind this blog was to counteract the perception that all secularists were ardent left wingers–i.e. that you shouldn’t make assumptions about a person’s overall world view just because they hold “left” or “right” ideas in some areas.

    Remember also, that these Hollywood types are scheduled for the event’s Opening Gala–they are not there for a seminar on science Even so, I myself would prefer a good hour of listening to Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, James Randi, etc to any Hollywood airhead–except Alan Alda–he has made a significant contribution to science education, no matter what your snarky blog entry might imply.

  2. John says:
    June 1, 2009 at 7:28 pm

    According to the website

    “The World Science Festival, an unprecedented annual tribute to imagination, ingenuity and inventiveness, takes science out of the laboratory and into the streets, theaters, museums, and public halls of New York City, making the esoteric understandable and the familiar fascinating.”

    This sounds pretty innocuous to me. I would much rather Hollywood celebs be celebrating science than joining PETA. True, most celebs are liberal, but there is not much we can do about that. As long as the Festival sticks to promoting science and not politics, I’m happy to have them aboard. Heck, in my experience, most scientists are liberal.

    Maybe I’m in the wrong circle, but most conservatives I know don’t see science as “liberal elites’ way of waging war against mainstream America”. (OK, maybe except for the ID’ers, but they deserve to be slapped down). Today and in the intermediate future, I think most opposition to science is going to come from the left, in areas like energy production, animal rights, and most importantly–research into human differences in personality and intelligence.

  3. SFG says:
    June 3, 2009 at 4:03 am

    I don’t know about the Eros of knowledge. I recall reading somewhere that most people actually find learning unpleasant (and if anyone remembers this article–it was either in the NYT or linked to from Arts and Letters Daily–please let me know). It would explain much of elementary and high school.

  4. Mike says:
    June 7, 2009 at 9:15 pm

    Eros? Perhaps Agape…

Comments are closed.